Agricola ‘Naimanya & Home’ Shiraz 2025

Naimanya & Home 100+ year old vines. 13.6% alcohol. 3,132 bottles produced.

There’s a quite distinct understatement to this wine, finesse, quietness, a distinctly fresher, tighter style that will likely irk some traditionalists but likewise draw in those seeking medium weight, tannin-hewn reds of perfume, minerality and coolness. Dark cherry, even some blue and red berry fruitiness, rose hip tea in chalky, puckering mode, lavender floral splashes, nutty woody notes in there, a rasp of black pepper, some brambly herbal all found in the mesh of things. Seamless in its integration of all the varied elements of fruit, savoury elements, earthiness with the rough, suede tug of lengthy tannin ropes lend shape and chew. An earthy, hazelnut-savoury finish superb. Proper stuff, sinewy and compact, serious in its expression of the variety and so distinct. 95 pts, Mike Bennie, The Wine Front